Lawrence Wilkerson and David Swanson Debate Colin Powell's Lies at the United Nations

When I wrote about MSNBC's documentary on Iraq war lies this week, I linked to an earlier blog post
of mine that drew heavily on a House Judiciary Committee report on the
same topic, as well as to Lawrence Wilkerson's recent debate with Norman
Solomon on Democracy Now!

When Brad Friedman reposted my Hubris review, he suggested I ask Wilkerson for a response. I did and here it is:

David,

Several misleading and
even spurious bullets and headlines that make strong claims that are not
supported in the surrounding narrative. For example, no one ever DID
warn Powell about Curveball, in fact quite the opposite. This particular
source--billed as an Iraqi engineer who had defected--was George
Tenet's--the DCI's--strongest weapon. And incidentally, the title "Curveball" was never heard until well after the 5 Feb presentation.

Your use of
INR's assessment of "weak" repeatedly, is weak itself. INR was at the
time one of 15 intelligence entities in the US intelligence architecture
at the federal level. (Add Israel France, the UK, Jordan, Germany, et
al, and of course you get even more). INR's assessments were often
viewed--indeed still are--as maverick within that group (and were
particularly so viewed by George Tenet and his deputy John McLaughlin.
Indeed, INR's insistence on putting a footnote in the October 2002 NIE
with regard to its doubts about Saddam's having an active nuclear
weapons program was only grudgingly acknowledged and allowed by Tenet.
And in truth, INR itself concurred in the overall NIE's finding that
chems and bios existed (and the NIE was the root document of Powell's 5
Feb presentation).

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I have admitted what a
hoax we perpetrated. But it actually spoils or desecrates a
fair condemnation of what is already a bad enough set of misstatements,
very poor intelligence analysis, and--I am increasingly convinced,
outright lies--to take the matter to absurdity with one man, in this
case Powell.

To see my point
dramatically, one must realize that whether Powell had given his
presentation or not, the President would have gone to war with
Iraq. That doesn't relieve Powell or me or any of us who participated in
preparing Powell of responsibility; it simply places the bulk of that
responsibility squarely where it should rest.

You, Ray McGovern, and I
will never reach accord on this I'm certain; but I must say that just as
I may have biases from my long association with Powell, I believe both
of you should examine your biases with regard to the man. Just as it
was very difficult for me to face the fact I had participated in a hoax,
it probably is just as difficult that you two admit you may be too
aggressively critical of Powell. Both our conditions are recognizably
human and yours more forgiveable than mine to be sure. lw

Whether
or not anyone told Powell of Curveball's reputation, Powell's own
staff, the INR, told him the claims were weak, the claims that came from
Curveball and from numerous other sources. The INR told him the claims
were weak and questionable and even implausible.

Powell used fabricated dialogue. He used evidence from a source
who had admitted all the weapons had been destroyed years ago, but
failed to mention that bit. Again, here is the catalog of bogus claims:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2011/021811a.html

You yourself in Hubris state that claims you'd rejected were
put back in. That is a moment to resign in protest, not to move
forward and dismiss the INR, the State Department's own experts, as
"maverick."

When the Pentagon and the White House build a transparently
fraudulent case for war, rejected by countless experts, many nations,
and much of the public, the State Department's job is to support
fact-based analysis regardless of whether it is "maverick."

You recently accused Norman Solomon on DemocracyNow! and
all other truth tellers of that time of having failed to warn you -- as
if we weren't shouting into every available microphone. If word had
slipped through to you, it seems you would have rejected it as
"maverick."

This is highly discouraging. If analysis within our government
consciously engages in groupthink, where will we find the whistleblowers
necessary to prevent the next war?

Please do not imagine that any of us suppose the President wasn't
intent on going to war at all costs. It was the transparency of that
intention that created the largest public protest in world history. But
to suggest that Powell and you did no harm by supporting a war that
might have gone ahead even if you'd resisted is a complete breakdown in
morality.

I don't believe blame works that way. Blaming Bush more doesn't
blame Powell or you less. It just blames Bush more. Blame is not a
finite quantity born of a drive for vengeance and distributable to a
limited number of people. Blame is what we each deserve when we fail to
take the best actions available, as explained here.

David Swanson is the author of "When the World Outlawed War," "War Is A Lie" and "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union." He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for the online (more...)